Nearly anyone can whistle the “Galop Infernale” from the operetta Orpheus in the Underworld if I called it by its less formal–and more well-known–name the “Can Can.” But could you name which religion its composer, Jacques Offenbach, followed? Yes, we have a member of the tribe to thank for an addictive classical melody and popular dance tune.
Like film composers, the proportion of important Jewish opera (and classical music) composers skyrockets above the proportion of Jews in the general population. However, you wouldn’t necessarily know to look at it. Offenbach was one of the most prolific composers of his time–and the most prolific Jewish composer of the day. He revolutionized opera in France and, along with Giacomo Meyerbeer (another Jew) was the most influential composer in the 19th Century. Out of his 100 known stage works, none reflect on Jewish themes.
Judaism is intrinsically linked with music. Our lives are operas, complete with big arias and choruses at major life events, melodic underscoring to our daily routines, and mothers-in-law that rival any screaming soprano.
The most famous work to break with tradition and reflect on Jewish themes is Fromental Halevy’s La Juive (“The Jewess”), which established the important genre of French Grand Opera. Halevy was not the only operatically-inclined member of his family, either. His nephew Ludovic Halevy was a popular librettist whose work included the libretto for Carmen.
It’s interesting to take the Jewish composer into context with their settings: opera, which was a product of the Italian Renaissance, was predominantly linked to the church through many of its early years. One of opera’s first composers, Claudio Monteverdi, had luxuries that were not afforded to his Jewish counterparts: when he was not writing operas such as L’Orfeo and L’incorinazione di Poppea (works still widely performed today, the former being the first complete opera for which we have a score and text), he was the conductor of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice.
At the same time Jews were segregated socially and artistically and, by choice or lack thereof, siphoned their musical talents into the synagogue. We can, in fact, thank these early composers for helping to build the foundation of our musical heritage today.
It was then in the wake of the Anschluss that we saw another great migration of Jewish composers, this time mainly to the United States. Many composers who showed initial promise were lost either in battle or in concentration camps and those who escaped to America found themselves in Hollywood. More thanks are in order to the movie industry, who lured Erich Wolfgang Korngold (who at 23 won international acclaim for his opera Die tote Stadt, an opera still widely performed today) away from Austria to compose the score for the Errol Flynn film The Adventures of Robin Hood. Korngold arrived in Hollywood towards the end of 1938, and would later credit the film with saving his life. The future of German opera became the future of American film scores, and to this day Korngold’s neo-Romantic musical style can still be heard in films today by his compatriots in music and religion.
“Classical music in 20th Century America wouldn’t be what it is if not for the Jewish migration,” New York City Opera dramaturg Cori Ellison points out. New York City Opera itself has championed Jewish opera composers from Hugo Weisgall to Richard Danielpour, whose opera Margaret Garner, written with Nobel prize-winning author Toni Morrison and based on her novel Beloved was performed to acclaim last fall. Philip Glass, who has been nominated for three Academy Awards for his film scores, has in the past year seen his operas at companies from San Francisco Opera to Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York.
While many of us don’t notice it as we watch a telecast of Great Performances on PBS or flip through the mailers we get from our local opera companies and orchestras, the influence from Jewish composers is all around. From the classics that are so popular they’re used in everything from advertisements to children’s cartoons and commercials to the new exciting operas generating international buzz, we see our musical culture thriving on a global scale. And for those of us who can’t afford a $1,000 opera box in order to keep up with the Steins, at least we can grab a cheap seat and say we’re keeping up with the Offenbachs.
